Month: August 2024

Tonight! At 7 p.m. at Powell’s in Portland

I’ll be appearing at Powell’s Books at 7 p.m. tonight, in conversation with historian Amanda Bellows, talking about her new book, The Explorers.

The Explorers is a retelling of America’s exploratory history with women, people of color, and immigrants foregrounded. Among the figures focused on are: Sacagawea, Black mountain man James Beckwourth, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Black polar explorer Matthew Henson, early pilot Amelia Earhart, and astronaut Sally Ride. The book is a great read and a welcome update to history as most of us have been taught it.

One of the things I like most about the book is how refreshing it is to see history through the eyes of someone other than white men. For example, in the chapter on Sacagawea, Bellows tells us she longed to see the Pacific Ocean but Lewis and Clark didn’t include her in the first group that went there from Fort Clatsop. She had to insist on going with a later group. This tells us more about her as an individual and helps to bring her more vividly to life.

It should be a stimulating discussion. I hope to see you there.

First Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation Evening a Huge Success

Chatting onstage with Sharma Shields.

The inaugural Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation evening took place last night, with the delightful and eminently charming Sharma Shields as our first featured author. In a beautiful museum setting, with Z. Vanessa Helder’s magnificent watercolors of Eastern Washington on the walls, 60+ people had the great fortune to listen to a terrifically talented writer talk in depth about her life and her work.

Among the topics Sharma discussed were: how she became a writer, how fairy tales can help us find a different path to a deeper reality, the source of her ability to write funny, a writer’s relationship to the serious issues of our times, and the importance in her life of the stories of Hans Christian Anderson (the subject of her next novel).

Sharma listens and smiles with Z. Vanessa Helder’s watercolors behind her.

She also talked at length about the development and “weirdness” of her three books–Favorite Monster, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac, and The Cassandra. One of the evening’s many treats was Sharma’s reading of three short stories about witches that showcased her humor and love for tales as well as the unique blend of edginess and tenderness that characterizes much of her work.

The audience waits for the conversation to begin, surrounded by Helder’s watercolors.

Next month–on Thursday, September 12–I’ll be interviewing the amazing Debra Magpie Earling, author of Perma Red and The Lost Journals of Sacajawea. Check back later for details.

Writers-in-Conversation events take place at 6 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month at the Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds, WA, and are sponsored by the Edmonds Bookshop and the Holman Company.

Kicking things off with thank yous and the story of how the Writers-in-Conversation series came to be.

Photos by Gene Openshaw and Rod Ralston.

Note: I’m an affiliate of Bookshop.org, where your purchases support local bookstores. If you buy a book through a click on this website, I’ll earn a small commission that helps defray the costs of maintaining this website.

Introducing the Cover for THE LAST GRAND TOUR–Coming January 28, 2025

Here’s the cover for my novel, THE LAST GRAND TOUR, coming from Korza Books on January 28, 2025.

Cover design by the wondeful Olivia Croom Hammerman at OCHbookdesign.com.

Worrying about a Fledgling Eagle 20 Feet from my Desk

This fledgling eagle turned up at the top of our bank last Sunday. It gave out a pitiful cry every few seconds and we worried that it was injured. When it moved, it seemed to have a hurt foot, and it didn’t fly.

For the first three days, it stayed mostly in the same place, but a couple of times it hopped up onto the woodpile just 20 feet from where I was writing. Its cry was usually intermittent, but sometimes it became continuous. We worried it would starve to death.

It took a couple of days for a wildlife rescue person to come out. When she did, she told us adult eagles might be feeding the fledgling when we weren’t looking. In any case, she couldn’t capture it (using a sheet and gloves) as long as it was so close to the edge. So we waited, that sad cry becoming the backdrop to our lives.

Two days ago, while I was watching it through the window, it flew several feet down the bank. Then it relocated to a stump at the top of a steep cliff above the water. While it was there, I saw an adult eagle perch nearby and lean down, seeming to talk to it. Other eagles flew by the next morning.

This morning (Thursday), I can still hear its cry, but it’s far down the bank, out of sight. When I walked over to see if I could locate it, I found it in “conversation” with this adult eagle perched high in a tree above it.

It is beyond our ability to monitor it now. And I feel fairly sure it will be okay. All that’s left of where it was near our place is this bit of down and this feather. But I think I’ll remember that sad cry for a long time.

Update: After two days of not seeing (but still hearing) the fledgling eagle, we located it 40 feet up this tree. So a) it can fly, at least a bit, and b) it can perch. Adult eagles have come by regularly. It’s going to be fine.